Day 5 - Real women do Pilates

It’s 12.23pm and I’m still in the office - running late for class AGAIN. Dammit.

I switch out my work heels, put on my trusty flip flops and do a quick trot over to Tras Street, arriving just in time for my second group lesson in 2 days and per the day before, I’m joining a group of ladies who are seasoned “pilateans” – if such a word exists.

Thankfully, I’m not the latest and I wriggle out of my work clothes and into my pilates kit whilst Jacq explains the differences in the Stott machines to the group.

It is, as always, an enjoyable hour. The springs in the reformer hum rhythmically as Jacq guides the class through her Pilates Athletic repertoire. My eyes start to blank out – I’ve reached a state of pilates nirvana where I’m looking but not seeing, my ears home-in on Jacq’s voice and my mind focuses on the lengthening & contracting of the muscles in my body as I breathe steadily.

After class, I pad back to the office and en route, realize that I had really missed out the last couple of years, by not being a part of the sorority of pilates loving women.

I had loved jogging - feet pounding the pavement, feeling the burn and letting the perspiration soak through my t-shirt, congratulating myself that THAT was real exercise. In my mind, pilates was the realm of chi-chi tai-tais who needed an easy, glamourous, time-filler before the next high tea or mani-pedi.

I couldn’t be further from the truth. The ladies I’ve met so far did not fit the stereotype. Don’t get me wrong - they all looked good but they also had real jobs… they had families… they had schedules…